“A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 193.
“Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day
(Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.”
"The Needless Alarm, Moral" (1794).
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 478.
“There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 285.
“The son of parents pass'd into the skies.”
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 118.
“Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 514.
St. 63.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
“He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book V, The Winter Morning Walk, Line 733.
Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 1-8
“Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.”
Source: Table Talk (1782), Line 260.
“How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!”
Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 415.
“T is Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.”
A Fable, Moral.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.”
Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 470.
“The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 299.
“It seems the part of wisdom.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 336.
The Jackdaw (translation from Vincent Bourne).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.”
Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)